I see a lot of potential and huge advantages with the approach of Lemmy. I'm interested enough and it feels fresh enough to keep using and watching it evolve. All it takes is the a decent enough sized community to keep at it.
I think you are right on all your points about what made Reddit great. For as much as there was hive minded tedium, rage baiting and corporate manipulation. There was also a very diverse and intelligent group of people having interesting discussions and supporting each other on everything. Anonymity and a well-functioning comment system is all we really needed to get together and discuss globally. I feel I have extracted huge benefit from Reddit over the years. I would feel a loss if I couldn't turn to an intelligent and diverse community like that.
I remember for years people would look at the interface of Reddit "old reddit" and just not understand it because of its totally utilitarian design. They couldn't make out the subreddit names being r/asentencelikethis. It kept the mainstream users (or let's just say less techsavey) out for a long time.
I think lemmy captures that original feeling of being slightly off-putting unless you're willing to get your head around it.